Two Fridays ago, I settled on my house. Overcome with gratitude and happiness. Funny story. I was eagerly showing the house to a few of my friends the next evening when cop sirens and flashing red lights fill the street. We look amongst ourselves. Well, shit, we do live in Baltimore. There's always some foolishness bound to be going on. Then we hear a very stern sounding knock on my front door. Confused, I open it to greet my unexpected guests--Baltimore's finest. (Cue white privilege for not being immediately tackled to the ground.) "Sir, we're responding to a breaking and entering call, and possible house party." "Uhh... I closed on this home yesterday." Then my next door neighbor steps outside and starts apologizing profusely. She's been living in her house for fourteen years, the last year and half of which my house has stood empty. She had no idea the house had been sold. Earlier I had knocked on her door but she wasn't home yet. The cops thought it was a rather cute use of their time and greeted me to the neighborhood. All in all, I'm overjoyed. On the cusp of getting straight As this semester, my roommate is moving in just in time to help pay my mortgage, and I'm the block's most eligible bachelor. I'm less than two blocks away from one of Baltimore's biggest parks where I'm looking forward to a summer of soccer leagues and food truck rallies. Finishing and furnishing the basement will be my next project, so if anyone from Hubski wants to crash, have at it.
Figured out a major source of my social anxiety is due to not really having a place in society. I'm becoming a full time runner and outdoorsy person, and yeah, I'm am engineer who's really into coffee. But I've been a part time punk for a while now, part time coffee in the sense that the scale I'm at is so far removed from everyone else, and I don't really have a societal group. Most of the runners are in a different part of life than I'm in. The punks are, well, punks. Everyone has their enclave, and here I am using my company phone over bluetooth in a new car to play Unwound. Not that I have a clue what to do about this. I moved again. Way South in the same city, less desirable area, with two people I know. I'm paying half what I had been laying in rent, so the remainder is subsidizing the car I bought and otherwise going into my student loan payments. Thinking this will be a six to nine month arrangement and then likely moving into a studio.
What does this mean? Who determines whether we have a place or not? How do we make a place for ourselves? How long does it take? How do immigrants and refugees feel? How much 'othering' is going on by people who feel more entitled? Is it an internal belief system that determines our place in society or external forces who are excluding us? I could probably write a dozen more questions.Figured out a major source of my social anxiety is due to not really having a place in society.
This line gave me a long pause. I wondered,
Same same. I've been working on that because I find I don't get into things enough to call them "my things". I feel like because of that I'm not confident enough to really engage people on them. I think that's called impostor syndrome or something. That's why I moved to the mountains to just kind of do whatever for a year or so.
What have you been doing to work on them? There are so many people I know who want to move to the mountains for a year or two.
Just playing and exploring really. It's what we are supposed to do in our childhood and teenage year in order to form some identity. I think some of us just need to move to a place with less responsibility and obligations to achieve that. The best was my last job our here. It was a 6 month contract and even though the job sucks you can be whoever you want for 6 months since you just leave at the end.
Very enjoyable experience, and something I first discovered when moving across the United States. Think it's part of why I've turned to hiking and camping so much, too. You find sides of yourself you didn't know existed. But I think at the same time it provides an interim period that contributes to the issues in my initial comment.It was a 6 month contract and even though the job sucks you can be whoever you want for 6 months since you just leave at the end.
Hiking and camping are great but they're also more small group or solo things. Moving far away isn't bad either but it's different when every persons time there has a pretty short expiry date and everybody is already planning to be on various continents after.
Mmm, yeah, sounds exactly like life in the Pacific Northwest in your 20s.Moving far away isn't bad either but it's different when every persons time there has a pretty short expiry date and everybody is already planning to be on various continents after.
Nah, It's really not comparable to living in civilization. It's hard to explain, I've done the moving around to different places for a short time and it's not really similar to stepping outside of society for a bit. Banff would be different though I think, they have an elementary school and stuff so it's not really as far removed.
Biking to work about every day and I hope I never have a daily car commute again. I spend more at lunch (and still get hungry again by afternoon) but figure I come out ahead on expenses even before considering mental and physical health. Of course, you find a few jerks wherever you go. First it was this road racer, doing a U-turn right in front of me, blocking the trail twice while staring at an array of electronics strapped to his handlebars. Then this loudmouth idiot had the nerve to give me a hard time while he was blocking my lane. Share the trail, buddy!
Have you run to work lately? I'm about ten miles from work, and is have to go down a normally busy county highway to get here. But they're closing the bridge this summer, and I expect that will choke off much of the traffic. It might be a nice run.
I ran home from work twice in February, about nine miles, but don't really have time in the morning to do it both ways, even though I'm now working about five miles from home. I really hope to get some long training in before this fall, but don't see a way to make that happen without an alarm clock and head lamp, two tools that require more motivation than I've been able to muster.
Running 10 miles to work sounds like something that might be fun on occasion, but I can see that taking a toll on the knees pretty quickly. That said, I sometimes wish I lived a mile or so from work and that I lived in a walkable part of the city. I would kill to be able to walk to work on nice days, even in the winter.
Yeah, it would definitely be a once a week thing, tops. I'd probably drive to work with my bike in the back and bike home the first day, then run to work and drive home the next. Where I work is rural but still close to town. I'd love to live near here both for the convenience to work and the open spaces. But since it's close to town, property values are kind of high.
I'm done with nursing school. Top of class, for what it's worth. Feels good, man. I've now got a BSN, and I'll be starting in the Emergency Department in a month or so after passing boards. Surreal. Workload was shitty, but the curriculum was fascinating. Studying the cardiovascular system was as close as I've ever come to believing in a higher power. Makes me a little sad I never went to med school. Will probably go back at some point to get a DNP, but for the time being I'm good with turning my brain off, getting back into dad mode and making music on my off days.
I FINALLY GRADUATED!!! (if you're enough of a stalker you might be able to figure out where) Ok, I got the certificate back in September but I finally went to the ceremony. I got to dress up all nice and shake the hands of some professors and see some old classmates. I found out that one is doing a PhD in Singapore this September and he invited me to come visit him in Singapore and another of my university friends in Thailand... Oh no, I'm visiting Canada/America then. I kind of knew that I would only be able to do one big trip this year, either to the Americas or Asia. The bright side is that now I know one more person I can visit. I will go on a big Asia tour one day. Hong Kong - Singapore - Japan - ??? Also I bought new shoes for this and they just rubbed the back of both my feet raw. It's almost as if I should have broken them in before walking/standing around for several hours. I'm split between wearing plasters and hoping that I can wear them in and returning them to the shop tomorrow.
My cousin makes webcomics now. Here is one I thought was funny: http://comicbew.com/post/160239533840/mirror-mirror Life is hectic, as always. Looks like we will continue living in NC for a while. We were considering San Francisco. StJohn was kind enough to meet up with my wife and show her around San Fran while she was out there interviewing. -very cool of you. She thought you were awesome. As do I. Hope everyone on the Hub is doing well. Miss you mo-fo's.
Aw, sorry to hear you won't be joining us in SF, but I'm sure you'll be happier somewhere you don't flush half your money down the toilet on rent every month. Still, you are morally and contractually obliged to come out for a drink whenever you're in town. You signed in blood and broken glass — it can never be undone.
Oh man, Loius & Jorge? I'll dig one up. Edit: here they are:
Showing Up Late to Pubski I am visiting PDTime Zone. No, not Parkinson's Disease - Pacific Daylight. It's raining and I'm holed up in this teeny tiny apartment working on a thing. Teeny Tiny Apartment I suppose it's not the tiniest, but it's on a third floor and no balcony. There's a bird feeder hanging outside the window. At first the birds wouldn't visit. They were hunting for seeds on the ground - not three stories up. mivasairski created a pulley system and hung the bird feeder on a flagpole. He put the bird feeder on the ground. Every few days, he'd raise it a few feet and gradually trained the birds to look for food up here. It took less than a week. I was going to write more, but it took me ages to figure out how to post this picture. Now I have to get to work. Work I'm writing a workshop on building confidence. I found some research and a TED talk saying that if you stand in a Wonder Woman pose for two minutes every day, your testosterone would go up and cortisol (stress hormones) would go down. Then I found a pdf on line by the co-author of the research disavowing all of it. So doing this won't help you build confidence - although doesn't it feel great to stand like that?
I really wish I knew the story behind Wonder Woman's diaper. I mean, here's DC comics 1975. here's a shot from Miss World, 1975. Here's a publicity shot from before the show aired. Yet for the run of the show, they put her in goddamn underoos. I don't know if there's been a less flattering superhero costume. Which censor lost their shit? Which sponsor decided enough turpitude was enough? And why didn't they at least give the poor girl a skirt?
although doesn't it feel great to stand like that?
Med center, boiiii Final exam in 20 minutes, but I'll free up at 16:30
Not a problem! No post-final bad vibes for you schmucks today. Hmu next time!
I work in UTC military, but I dialed it back one notch for playtime.
thenewgreen, sorry nah. just can offer some advice remotely if wanted
It is gorgeous outside today. A little breezy, but we really can't complain when the sun is blazing down like this. The work with my dad has settled down a little bit, but it's unpredictable. Some days are short, some days are long. I'm also still doing my wee bit of work at the pub, so it's nice to earn a little bit of money. It's good to be busy in general. I've have been growing increasingly concerned about the next step, though. This way of living is not something I can or want to do for very much longer; unfortunately, the thought of The Future makes me break out in a cold sweat. I have made little progress on the book: getting home and thinking "nah, I'm too tired - tomorrow", which never got anyone anywhere. On the plus side, a couple of friends read the first draft, and didn't hate it. Yeah! So basically I'm coming to a point where I really need to plan my next move. Move back up to Dublin and look for bar work, maybe? I dunno; I don't know what I want. Oh no, I'm one of those millenials. Two days ago was the anniversary of the start of my walk. Hopefully, I will post a Hubski write-up before the anniversary of its end. I watched Rashomon the other day and I think I've discovered where the convention in anime of intense closeups comes from. The film's great; check it out.
Now I'm hungry and curious. Actually Ireland is part of the visa waiver programme, so we don't need a visa to visit. (For 90 days. I have a general desire to walk across the States in a few years time, and 90 days is waaaay too little time.)
I work with a dude who's son is going to do it this summer to raise awareness about access to water. I'm hoping he can crash on my couch one night. I'll post about this again, but if anyone wants to put him up for the night, I'm sure he'd be grateful, as would I.I have a general desire to walk across the States
Whoa, that's amazing! I mean, the marathons carrying water is a huge achievement to begin with, and then this? Hats off to that guy!
Having permission to feel good about myself is nice. Maybe one day I won't need permission, I can simply think well of myself because I am not a complete shit-heap of a person. Until then, having permission is nice. Next show is the end of this month with the Detroit Symphony, we're doing Beethoven's 9th again. So much freude in the singing of it all, in the rehearsals. Pretty much immediately after I finish up with the DSO, it's time for NYC and Carnegie Hall for the 3rd year in a row. This time there will actually be someone who knows me in the audience, which is comforting. I like to remark to my friends and Robust Pleasure Source 'We're the adults now! We get to decide what that means!' And lately I've been really able to say that and mean it and take pleasure in self-actualization. If my idea of fun is laying in the sun and reading, nobody gets to gainsay that. I'm increasingly more comfortable in my own skin which is a fairly novel feeling.
I wonder if this is what gradually getting older really means. Shit that tended to bother you stops bothering you. I already feel it to be true.I'm increasingly more comfortable in my own skin which is a fairly novel feeling.
Hypothesis: When we're younger, our validation is external - what our parents tell us, what our teachers tell us, what our classmates tell us. As we age and gain more responsibility, we not only lose the authorities in superior positions who can validate or criticize us, but our peer group diminishes dramatically. We grow confident in our own skins because our own internal opinions remain strong while external forces grow weak.
Baking I'm slowly getting a handle on this business of making bread from wheat berries. The general process I've settled into is: soak the berries the night before in an equal amount of water by weight. The next morning, take the berries out of the water, crack 'em in the blender/spice grinder, and put 'em back in the water. Let soak another hour. Then put berries and water in a food processor. Add yeast and salt, process until dough forms. I have no idea which steps in this process do what, but if I leave any of them out, things end poorly. The sourdough starter I've been making with rye berries turns a week old tomorrow night. Should be ready for prime time. It smells amazing, and is rising really well considering it's in more of a rye porridge than a dough. I tossed out my old starter a while back. It tasted ok (to me), but was always a bit astringent smelling.
Movies This past week Dala and I watched Princess Mononoke together, a movie I've seen a handful of times and always liked. I got her the Blu-Ray for Christmas a year or so ago and this is the first time we sat down to watch it together. It's been over a decade since I last saw it, so even though I know the movie, it was almost like watching it for the first time again. It's a lot more violent than I remember. It's a little scarier than I remember (not super scary, but there's a considerable deal of fantasy horror there). It is so, so, so much more magical than I remember too. The story is magical, the character design is magical, the visuals are magical. This is a fantastically solid movie. I'm glad it's been so long since I've seen it, because I really got the chance to appreciate it like brand new and it was just so good. I'm talking to one of my buds who's girl loves Miyazaki films. I've only seen Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky and he's telling me that we need to do a movie night and watch Howl's Moving Castle. So I'm gonna do my best to schedule something to make that happen. Theater Speaking of Japanese art and stuff, I remember when I was about eight or nine years old my mother took me to see a Bunraku performance. I don't remember much of it, except I think it was a collection of short stories and one involved a lady ghost in a snow storm in the mountains. I remember it was absolutely amazing though. So I got it in my head that maybe I should find a way to see if and when any Bunraku or Kabuki performances might find their way to this city, and if so, who all might like to join me for one. It turns out that I'm friends with a lot of classy mother fuckers, because everyone I bring this idea up with think it sounds absolutely amazing and would love to go to one or the other with me and Dala. So now I'm thinking about contacting some of the local theaters and seeing if they ever host those kinds of performances or could point me in the direction of people who do. I was also lamenting to Dala how theater is expensive in general. I can't remember if it was her idea or mine, but the conversation drifted in the direction of how colleges often put on productions that while not professional, are very, very good, and probably a lot cheaper than what you'd pay for an actual theater. So maybe later this week I'm gonna look some of that information up to. Antique Glass I'm starting to think about changing my collection from collecting antique books to starting to collect antique glass (we have quite a few pieces already, but they all belong to the wife with the exception of some insulator caps we bought together). They're not only more durable than books and easier to clean, but they don't require any reading after purchase, so there's no guilt of never getting around to reading them. You just clean them, put them on display on the shelf, and when people ask about them you get to put it in their hands and say "Take a close of a look as you can. Isn't that an amazing little fucker?" Metal Detectors . . . it looks like a fun hobby. Don't judge me. I'm cool. EDIT: OH YEAH! THE MUTHA-FUCKING HOUSE WE SAW!!! We thought it was a safe bet because it was a slab foundation house and every slab house we've seen so far has been in great shape. Not this one. The foundation was so bad, the floors were literally wavy. We're talking about circus funhouse wavy. We're talking about feeling like you're drunk while walking around wavy. We're talking about the fridge leaning against the wall and the oven leaning against the counterop wavy. That shit was baaad. Which sucks. Cause the yard was perfect. The driveway was awesome. The layout and the size of the house was perfect. But man. With a foundation like that, no wonder it was such a good price. There's probably no fixing that thing without tearing up all of the flooring and the whole house would probably have to come down and be rebuilt. So . . . if the owner was willing to pay us to take it off his hands, we'd consider. Otherwise, no go.
Do watch Howl's Moving Castle! It ties with Princess Mononoke for my favourite Studio Ghibli film.
Howl's Moving Castle is kinda weird. It's pretty conventional on the Miyazaki scale. It's not great. I'd watch Nausicaa and Porco Rosso first. Community theater is fun and cheap. One of the subplots in The Lives of Others is the playwright the Stasi spies on puts on a production in Berlin prior to reunification and then puts it on again after and the set design is starkly different but the underlying message is somehow purer under East German budgets. Whenever i see community theater, I'm reminded of the difference.
If you're looking into Metal Detectors, you should definitely consider watching the show Detectorists. Season One is one of my favorite shows of all-time. That's not an exaggeration, either.
Gliding weekend was neat. I started learning how to land, which is intense and difficult as it basically entails pointing your plane to the ground, sticking to 60 mph, using flaps to position your landing and pulling up at the last second so you fly a few feet from the ground and can gently fall down. I wasn't too bad at it, let's hope that's still the case next time around. I'm on track to read my third book in the last two weeks. I devoured Cal Newport's Deep Work in two days after listening to his discussion in the Ezra Klein podcast. I found his productivity tips quite useful and applied it immediately (and in my opinion, succesfully) to writing my thesis proposal last week. One of his recommendations that had a much higher impact than I expected was to remove my quick access to social media. I removed the apps from my phone, deleted social media bookmarks (only Hubski remains) and changed my homepage to something minimal instead of eight highly distracting websites. Suddenly I am wasting way less time (a tenth or something like that), time which I've been using to pursue side projects and read more. Two books he recommended were Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus and You Are Not a Gadget, the former I finished yesterday and the latter I'm halfway through already. Both are very interesting reads, although Rushkoff's book really could have benefited from reading Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 years.
Always on it veen! All three books are on my list after their conversation together. Glad to hear that there were some tangible benefits for you.
I've been slacking on #scificlub lately. I'm still unsure what we should do with the format going forward. Suggestions? Also, has anyone seen Ghost in the Shell yet?
Already? Another one? For the last two weeks, I've been staying up until as late as 5 AM. Today was no exception. The sole purpose of such night watch is so I could talk to a girl living four timezones behind me. It's the same girl I've talked about at last week's Pubski meeting. It's difficult to talk about it without feeling pity for myself right now. I tend to internalize all my failures, and this, being a new experience, has many. I recognize that often, I set myself against an indecently-high bar. Still, being sober in reflection, - I did things that aren't good for any relationship, or for myself. Putting unreasonable pressure on her was one of those things. Selling myself low - another. It's scary for me to be in a relationship where the other person appreciates me for what I am. Past memories tell me that after such appreciation, inevitably comes pointing out of how I fail as a person, in one aspect or another. Now, without external sources of shame, I make one up from inside to "compensate" for good behavior. I'm accustomed to surviving in toxic conditions that no longer exist in my life, and the survival instinct is difficult to rewire because dangers don't just disappear - not in nature, anyway. Either way, I don't believe it's going to matter. I don't think she still takes me seriously as a potential romantic interest. At this point, I'm just glad to have had someone who sincerely - and obviously - likes me. "Obviously" is a big one for me, because my default state of mind on people's attitude towards me is "uh, it's this guy again". Unless people tell me they feel good about it, I don't dare assume otherwise. It's something I've been working on for the past few months, but with the busload of things on my shoulders doesn't do my healing favors. In other news, I've finally figured out how to not stress so much about university and the pile of debts that I've accrued by missing two months' worth of classes due to depression. It's a job. I may not like it, but it affords me opportunities I couldn't have otherwise acquired. It pays, too... technically: my parents send me money to live on. Besides, it's not the worst thing I could be doing, given the freedom I get for doing it. Just have to do well enough. For now, it's okay. I'm glad to have found this place. You guys are awesome. There are great conversations here from time to time, and the trove of experiences people bring here is fantastic. Keep up the good work, fellas.
Late again, but I I've balanced out last week's bayonet-to-the-foot with this week's getting to hold a bunny for 10 mins during a "stress and wellness" fair that my school held today. The fair seems more like an apology for the emotional, mental and physical molestation of the Corps on a daily basis but I accept that apology in the way of "fuck yeah, bunnies!"
I replaced my iPhone 5 with the Samsung Galaxy S8. I've had it for two weeks, and I like it. So far my only complaints with the operating system switch are minor. I forgot my nicer headphones at home, so I'll listen to the new, amazing Feist album with the random pair on my desk.
I do! While I don't follow music as much as I once did, I have done Broken Social Scene memories. One is seeing Feist, Emily Haines and Amy Millan share a stage in 2010. The whole band is amazing.
It probably isn't fair to compare performance. My old phone was released in 2012 while this one was released last month. The S8 is naturally much faster. One little thing is Android uses a global back button. In Chrome on my iPhone, I could sweep to go back. Here, it's only the button. To go forward a page I have to use a menu. When I mistype "yo," it doesn't autocorrect to "to." There are probably some others, but they're really minor. I wouldn't steer someone away from Apple, but I also wouldn't steer them away from Android. My Apple complaints aren't that they've gotten worse, it's that flagship Android phones seem to have caught up and passed them in some ways.
Late to the party, and I don't usually post here, but here goes. I've been in a long-distance relationship for about four years now, and I think it's coming to an end. My girlfriend has been hanging out with some of my old friends lately, friends I made before I moved away across the world, and one of them in particular has been more present in her life than the others. Two days ago he told her he loved her, ever since he met her the first time. Today I had a very long, very abrasive conversation with my girlfriend over Skype, and I am now beginning to understand that the emotional distance that appeared between us in these last few weeks was probably not altogether due to her increased workload, but perhaps something else entirely. No, I do not think they have been sleeping together, but I was now told that what we have now is not working, and that she needs other people in her life. She is probably right, but that's not making it any easier.
Spring thunderstorms all last weekend and most of this week have made for a lot of flooding in my area; fortunately I'm on the side of a hill and don't have any low water crossings between me and town. A lightning strike did take out my internet antenna--this seems to be a yearly thing; there's not much you can do to protect electronics that have to live at the top of a 50' lightning rod. Fortunately this time around I had a surge protector in front of my router so I don't have to re-discover how to switch the upstream port on it. I'm starting on a paper that's due in just under 3 weeks so hopefully the mathematical stars align and I can manage to do something interesting between now and then!